Maple Marinated Grilled Pickeral

This recipe was inspired by a discussion on the Food Network community forum about trying to reproduce the Loblaws Maple BBQ salmon.

I picked up some pickeral. I know it's not salmon but that is what I felt like having.The recipe is sized for four pickeral filets but I only had two. So I made the whole spice mix and used only half of it to make the marinade. I also used Cubeb pepper but you can easily substitute black pepper

1 tbsp cubeb peppercorns
1 tsp mustard seed
1 tsp hickory smoked salt
1 tsp granulated garlic
1 tsp onion powder
1 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp soy sauce
½ cup maple syrup
2-4 pickeral filets (~4kg)


Combine the pepper, mustard seed smoked salt and granulated garlic in a spice grinder. Process in the grinder to a powder. Combine with the powdered onion and smoke paprika.

The spice mixture can be stored in a sealed container.

Combine the spices with the soy sauce and maple suryp.

Maple Marinade - Ready to go!

Coat the fish with the marinade and place the fish with the marinade in a plastic bag and refrigerate for 4 hours or over night.

Filets Coated with Marinate

Grill the fish over high heat about 4 minutes per side. I grilled the flesh side down first and then flipped the skin side down.

Finished dish

Here is it served with green beans and some pan fried potatoes with green onion.

Something in the marinade was over powering. Possibly the smoked salt. There was no sense of the maple syrup. So I will have to continue to improve the marinade.